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I feel like one of the dodos in Ice Age, desperately trying to evolve the power of flight before I reach the front of the line and it’s my turn to fall off the cliff.

I’m trying to change myself gradually, one bit at a time, to have a happier, more successful, more rewarding life. Every change is a slight improvement – and I hope that one day I’ll spread my wings and soar across the sky instead of landing with a thud.

This could be my last chance to send my words flying across the internet to immortality, so…

Welcome to the opinionated and slightly peculiar realm of Emily the Dodo!

My mission is to solve all the world’s problems and have a crack at some of my own if I can find the time. I’m here to help you find a better life.

I hope to entertain my readers with witty, imaginative and insightful prose. But I’ll probably end up having a go at harmless strangers who can’t use apostrophes correctly or complaining about the price of cheese.

No, it’s not due to my credit card bill for Christmas presents. (Well, not entirely!)

I always feel depressed at this time of year. Unfortunately, I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, due to the lack of winter sunlight here in sunny England.

Events in my life over the last two months weren’t especially bad, but sometimes I just can’t shake off the gloom and it’s a struggle just to get through the day without biting people. Which is the reason I didn’t start my Dodo to Dynamite year in January.

Our house is an icebox, and I’ve been eating everything that isn’t nailed down, because I’m so cold – who feels like virtuously chomping fresh fruit when it’s apple-crumble-and-custard weather?

I was at my sister’s party, and afterwards the photos were all over Facebook.

I saw one of myself, sitting in a chair, with my flab bulging over my waistline, holding a cigarette in one hand and a glass of Diet Coke in the other. Although it’s a party, I’m not mingling and chatting, but sitting with my partner.

“What a perfect ‘Before’ picture,” I thought. “It shows all the things I wanted to change.”

And then it hit me.

This isn’t ‘Before’. This is over HALFWAY THROUGH my Dodo to Dynamite in a Year self-improvement challenge.

The thing is… I really wish my partner would stop doing the gardening.

You see, my idea of gardening is chucking a few flowers into plant pots and mowing the lawn once every spring.

Occasionally I’ll glance out of the window and see my beloved flowers hanging over the side of the pots, doing an impression of parched men crawling across a desert. Then I leap outside to water them. And then the ungrateful things die anyway.

The fifth month of my Dodo to Dynamite in a Year self-improvement challenge… and I’m failing.

The last few months have been disappointing in terms of progress, and I feel as if I’m juggling too many balls at once. And I must admit, I’ve dropped quite a few!

So I’ve had a good chat with my closest family members, talked about the targets I’m trying to achieve and asked them to support me with a mixture of moral support and tough love. Talking it through has helped me come up with a few new strategies to make me stick to my plans.

And, as you’ve probably spotted, I’ve added a great motivational tool on Emily the Dodo this month – a countdown clock to show how long I’ve got left of my year.

If that doesn’t get me going again, nothing will. And it’s all too clear that time is running out. Eek! Time to redouble my efforts!